Drinking

Toughening up alcohol policies has resulted in a change in drinking culture at Dunedin's student halls, University of Otago accommodation services director James Lindsay says.

Staff at the Dunedin Botanic Garden are concerned about the growing popularity of a drinking game called "possum", in which participants sit in trees and drink large amounts of alcohol.

A drunken Irishman signalled the start to St Patrick's Day celebrations in Dunedin, snoozing at the central city police station before sunrise on Saturday.

People who work long irregular hours are more likely to consume more than two standard alcoholic drinks per day, a new study from the University of Otago has found.

Only 15 percent of us admit to drinking too much, and beer pips white wine as the favourite Kiwi summer tipple, a poll has found.

The University of Otago's attempts to curb the student drinking culture have been reactionary and misguided, and Student Life director and Scarfie Card creator Aaron Thomson challenges it to do better.

Shani Naylor says health professionals have been vocal in telling the Government the current alcohol laws aren't working.

The head of the University of Otago's National Addiction Centre (NAC) is welcoming a fresh call for supermarkets to be banned from selling alcohol, saying they are using cheap booze as "bait".

A new generation of campers is enjoying Queenstown camping grounds this season, but some late-teenaged campers had to be thrown out for drunken behaviour.